Cardiff Blues v Edinburgh Rugby, 1 September

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Cardiff Blues v Edinburgh Rugby
1 September 2017
KO: 19:35
Cardiff Arms Park

Live on BBC Alba and BBC Wales

Referee: Gorgeous George Clancy (Lobotomy Island)
Assistant Referees: [tbc]
Citing Commissioner: [tbc]
TMO: [tbc]

A. Head to Head

33 Played 33
12 Wins 21
21 Losses 12
0 Draws 0
55 Tries 81

B. Form

2017-02-24
Edinburgh 17 - 18 Cardiff Blues

C. Teams

Cardiff Blues

Matthew Morgan; Alex Cuthbert, Rey Lee-Lo, Willis Halaholo, Aled Summerhill; Jarrod Evans, Lloyd Williams; Rhys Gill, Matthew Rees (capt), Taufa'ao Filise, Seb Davies, Damian Welch, Josh Turnbull, Josh Navidi, Nick Williams.

Replacements: Kirby Myhil, Corey Domachowski, Keiron Assiratti, Macauley Cook, Sion Bennett, Tomos Williams, Steve Shingler, Tom James.

Edinburgh Rugby

Blair Kinghorn; Dougie Fife, Chris Dean, Junior Rasolea, Jason Harries; Duncan Weir, Sam Hidalgo-Clyne; Darryl Marfo, Stuart McInally, WP Nel, Anton Bresler, Grant Gilchrist, Jamie Ritchie, John Hardie, Magnus Bradbury (capt).

Replacements: Ross Ford, Michele Rizzo, Simon Berghan, Ben Toolis, Cornell du Preez, Nathan Fowles, Jason Tovey, Glenn Bryce.

Anyone watch the game - who were the Edinburgh standouts?

That is a real shot in the arm for Edinburgh given where they have been in recent season. Perhaps a bit of an alarm bell for the Blues as well.

Edinburgh's defence helped win us the game.

In terms of standouts:
- Ritchie - he's really coming on and was a constant pest
- Bresler - big hits, every tackle was aggressive
- Kinghorn - scored one set up one.
- weir - played well, if he plays like that every week I might start to change my opinion.

But to be fair it was the same as Newcastle, no player played badly, they just played well as a team.

Good start for Edinburgh.

Probably worth pointing out that before tonight's result the bookies had the Blues at 40/1 to win the league and Edinburgh at 125/1.

Since the result SkyBet have both at 50/1. It may be the first game of the season, but it's a big result.

Just watched the game. It was a pretty different looking Edinburgh team from last season, who looked like they were playing for each other and wanted the result. A couple of things stood out for me:

Edinburgh defence was a revelation. The whole team were up for a tackle and in a very disciplined formation. McCrae looks to have done a very good job on that front and if Edinburgh can turn themselves into a hard to beat team, then that is the first step forward.

Cockers made the right calls during the game with no respect for big names. The front row, who had been pretty dominant during the first half, were hooked the second they started to run out of steam in the second half. Same with Breslar, who was also starting to tire and also just starting to make himself known to the ref. Cockers trusted his subs and they came on and did the job. How often in the past have Edinburgh lost games because various coaches left exhausted players out on the pitch because they did not trust their bench.

A win like that should give them great confidence but they need to back it up next weekend in a game they will be expected to win, which will be a different kind of pressure.

Went to the game and kind of regret it. I picked the wrong place to stand as most of the action seemed to be closer to the North Terrace.

Cardiff lacked energy in attack for large spells though their line speed in defense was excellent throughout. The breakdown work was generally solid on both sides. No Cardiff players really stood up except Lee-Lo and Tom James (when he came on). Cuthbert and Summerhill did not help Morgan enough with the up and under's. The Cardiff kick chase was embarrassing. Saw Cuthbert lose a jump against SHC (I think). Only Morgan seemed to want to get after the ball and he is the smallest guy on the park. The lack of control from the 10 was telling though the young one was trying to make something happen. The lack of organisation did not seem to be just him and the 9's should have done a lot more to protect him.

Edinburgh had a basic game plan and they executed at a reasonable level. Not too many mistakes were made and with a little more clinical finishing, this would have been a 5 pointer.

Weir set them up well with some poor control from 9 not helping and his kicking was good. If that can be his average performance, he will be fine as a starting 10.
Toolis came on and immediately Edinburgh started disrupting the Cardiff line-outs. Cardiff got a scrum penalty that was getting the crowd into it as we entered the later stages and the next line-out, Edinburgh knick it. Killed the mood.
Gilchrist was solid and sent a few carriers backwards in the tackle. He was ok at line-out time and could not tell about the scrums but assume he was ok. I don't remember him carrying much, but generally he looked engaged and like he would fight for the starting berth. He may push himself back into Scotland contention if he keeps it up.
The front row was fully replaced after Cardiff tore them to pieces around the 50th minute. It stabilized the platform. Ford's throwing was wayward (not sure if it is worth noting).
The kick chase was excellent. Ritchie summed it up when Cardiff put a man in the air at the kick-off and he almost took the ball anyway. Cardiff were put under constant pressure.
Kinghorn offered the most threat for me out of anyone on the park. He should be fighting Hogg for the Scotland jersey if Hogg is not at 100%. His tackling needs a little work but he was happy to put himself in harm's way which is usually the main challenge.

Clancy was reffing and I have got to be honest, he was horrific. He let a number of things go that should not have been and it is to the general credit of both sides that it did not get out of hand. Fairly sure there were punches thrown in one maul that I could see from the other side of the pitch that he ignored, and later he decided to run over when the Cardiff lock and (I think) Bresler were jersey pulling/discussing hair products in a non-committal way and acted like he was defusing a potential brawl. The assistants were not particularly useful either and the first Edinburgh try looked to be a forward pass. Refs have a tough job...but is this really the best we can find at this level?

Sounds like if we make that our baseline performance for the season we should win more games than we lose, and could pick up some big wins along the way.

Conversely if our standards drop below that it will be another long season.

A great start but 20 more to go!

Trigger warning....

Why are so many Edinburgh fans (ok maybe just 2) so complimentary about Gilchrist. Despite his size he constantly makes zero yards and seems to offer little in the line out

cakeordeath wrote:Trigger warning....

Why are so many Edinburgh fans (ok maybe just 2) so complimentary about Gilchrist. Despite his size he constantly makes zero yards and seems to offer little in the line out

Just the question that many Glasgow fans have been asking for a couple of season now.

A bluebottle, desperately trying to exit my front porch.

Hazel Sapling wrote:Went to the game and kind of regret it. I picked the wrong place to stand as most of the action seemed to be closer to the North Terrace.

Cardiff lacked energy in attack for large spells though their line speed in defense was excellent throughout. The breakdown work was generally solid on both sides. No Cardiff players really stood up except Lee-Lo and Tom James (when he came on). Cuthbert and Summerhill did not help Morgan enough with the up and under's. The Cardiff kick chase was embarrassing. Saw Cuthbert lose a jump against SHC (I think). Only Morgan seemed to want to get after the ball and he is the smallest guy on the park. The lack of control from the 10 was telling though the young one was trying to make something happen. The lack of organisation did not seem to be just him and the 9's should have done a lot more to protect him.

Edinburgh had a basic game plan and they executed at a reasonable level. Not too many mistakes were made and with a little more clinical finishing, this would have been a 5 pointer.

Weir set them up well with some poor control from 9 not helping and his kicking was good. If that can be his average performance, he will be fine as a starting 10.
Toolis came on and immediately Edinburgh started disrupting the Cardiff line-outs. Cardiff got a scrum penalty that was getting the crowd into it as we entered the later stages and the next line-out, Edinburgh knick it. Killed the mood.
Gilchrist was solid and sent a few carriers backwards in the tackle. He was ok at line-out time and could not tell about the scrums but assume he was ok. I don't remember him carrying much, but generally he looked engaged and like he would fight for the starting berth. He may push himself back into Scotland contention if he keeps it up.
The front row was fully replaced after Cardiff tore them to pieces around the 50th minute. It stabilized the platform. Ford's throwing was wayward (not sure if it is worth noting).
The kick chase was excellent. Ritchie summed it up when Cardiff put a man in the air at the kick-off and he almost took the ball anyway. Cardiff were put under constant pressure.
Kinghorn offered the most threat for me out of anyone on the park. He should be fighting Hogg for the Scotland jersey if Hogg is not at 100%. His tackling needs a little work but he was happy to put himself in harm's way which is usually the main challenge.

Clancy was reffing and I have got to be honest, he was horrific. He let a number of things go that should not have been and it is to the general credit of both sides that it did not get out of hand. Fairly sure there were punches thrown in one maul that I could see from the other side of the pitch that he ignored, and later he decided to run over when the Cardiff lock and (I think) Bresler were jersey pulling/discussing hair products in a non-committal way and acted like he was defusing a potential brawl. The assistants were not particularly useful either and the first Edinburgh try looked to be a forward pass. Refs have a tough job...but is this really the best we can find at this level?

Thanks very much to Hazel and Gee for the game summaries.

Delighted with that result for Edinburgh - they needed something to boost them at the start of the season. Agree with the comments above - start by being hard to beat and worry about the attacking game later. For all of his foibles (and there are a dozen, leather bound volumes of them), Weir will kick his goals and that will take the Exfoliators through many a long winter night if they can keep their discipline like they did yesterday.

There was one, for me, very positive aspect to the game: in the first half the Blues created at least four clear overlaps; two went to second rows who duly knocked on, one was taken back inside since it was a fat boy on the wing and the other was messed up by some other imaginative strategy (probably gave the ball to Alex Cuthbert). It looked to me as if the MFl were defending too narrow rather than the Blues conjuring overlaps at will. In the second half I didn't notice one instance of a clear overlap. The Blues got it wide a few times but there were always defenders there to deal with it.
This ability to re-organise will stand the Luvvies in good stead over the season but I can't help but think that a more efficient side would have converted two or three of those overlaps.

cakeordeath wrote:Trigger warning....

Why are so many Edinburgh fans (ok maybe just 2) so complimentary about Gilchrist. Despite his size he constantly makes zero yards and seems to offer little in the line out

I never really rated him however, I will be appreciative when he shows that he is capable and has a desire to win. I can see why he was picked ahead of Toolis and the youngsters with his performance yesterday, even if he could provide more as a carrier. Bresler and Toolis are both excellent line-out callers who he will spend most of the season playing with. I am not sure he is being asked to provide more than doing his job.

My main memory of Gilchrist is when Cardiff were getting over the game line a couple of times in row near the 22 and he knocked them back 2-3 yards twice in the space of a minute late in a relatively close game (one of the few times play was near me). I think he then assisted the following tackle meaning he worked to put himself into 3 of 4 phases after playing for 70 minutes on the 22. Not sure he was willing to do that last season or the previous one.

He is no where near the level he could be and I still rate Toolis/Cummings ahead of him for Scotland, but I do not want to write him off if he is going to perform at a good level. If Cockerill has got it through to him that he may not get to play with Toolis, Bresler, Hunter-Hill and Carmichael all looking good, this is a solid first audition.

Christ that was dross, no wonder so many Cardiff fans are concentrating on putting down the Dragons rather than criticize their own 'region'

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